President schedules municipal elections for June 21

TIRANA, Dec. 15 – President Bujar Nishani on Monday decreed June 21 next year as the date for the municipal elections in Albania.
The date was set immediately after the Constitutional Court ruled against the main opposition Democratic Party appeal regarding the new territorial reform.
It will be four years since Albanians last decided on local leaders in 2011. But this time the elections will select 61 municipal leaders compared to 383 communes and town hall mayors they had voted for until 2011, as the elections will be held under the new territorial division, following a major reform implemented by the government.
The reform faces opposition, and the elections under it might come into question as the opposition might boycott them to protest the reform or local referendums might void the new division.